Prosecutors from the Republic of Moldova requested on Monday a 25-year prison sentence for the oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, extradited from Greece in September and tried for embezzlement of one billion dollars, against the background of accusations of actions in favor of the Kremlin, AFP reports, taken over by Agerpres.
The prosecution requested this punishment during a hearing before a court examining this case of organized crime, fraud and money laundering on a large scale, which led to the disappearance in 2014 of one billion dollars from the national banking system, equivalent to 15% of the GDP of the Republic of Moldova.
The punishment corresponds to “the maximum punishment currently provided by the Moldovan criminal code”, emphasized prosecutor Alexandru Cernei.
The 60-year-old defendant was not present at the hearing, but his lawyer, Lucian Rogac, denounced the accusations as “unfounded”. Speaking in court in February, Plahotniuc claimed that the case was political and that the charges were “completely fabricated”.
This former member of parliament and founder of the Democratic Party, accused of secretly controlling key institutions in the Republic of Moldova, fled the country in 2019, at a time when he was being investigated in several cases.
He is charged in particular for his role in a massive corruption scandal that involved the disappearance of a billion dollars from the coffers of three national banks.
In mid-July, the European Union announced sanctions against him and six other pro-Russian people accused of trying to destabilize the Republic of Moldova before the parliamentary elections last September, crucial for the European future of this country, located between Ukraine and Romania, AFP comments.
He was arrested at the end of July at Athens airport, following a red notice issued by Interpol, while trying to reach Dubai, according to Moldovan authorities.
